SL Certification Project

Introduction

There are many classes on many different Second Life skills and all of the classes focus on different sets of abilities within each skill. The SL Certification Project's goal is twofold:

Create extensive and complete lists of abilities within as many different Second Life-specific skillsets as required by businesses and individuals in Second Life.

Create certification exams as another way, separate from portfolio, for Second Life residents and solution providers to prove their ability within a specific skillset.

SL Certification is a task-based approach to identifying those who have attained a given level of proficiency in world in a given knowledge and skills area. To become an SL Certification project participant, contact Orange Planer (Leader).

A list of certified individuals would be maintained and made publicly available.

Action Plan

Phase One - Develop Skills Lists

The SL Certification Developers team uses volunteer moderators to:

Create and maintain a single schools list on the Second Life Wiki with links to their information locations showing what they teach.

Create and maintain multiple skills lists on the Second Life Wiki of one should know to attain levels of ability in those skillsets.

The volunteer moderators keep the skills lists current.

Schools will:

Educate those interested to reach those levels.

The schools will create learning content based on the certification criteria.

Remain responsible for their own existing certification programs.

Residents will have a choice of where to go to learn the skills.

Everyone has the benefit of a shared set of skills lists for reference.

Individuals have:

A checklist for managing their own skills education program.

A list of schools who are known to give classes on material they want to take.

Schools have:

The opportunity to be known for the classes they already make available.

The opportunity to offer new classes not yet available.

Solution Providers have a checklist for managing their employee skills education programs or checking skills levels of their contractors

Phase Two - Develop Skills Tests

The SL Certification Developers team uses volunteer moderators to develop, test, and document:

Multiple skills tests of what people need to know, and know how to do, in multiple categories of Second Life skills

Use the best blends of testing methods including but not limited to: Written (True/False; Multiple Choice), Performance (Build; Texture; Plan)

Phase Three - Create A Mechanism For Establishing Certification Testing

The SL Certification Developers team will identify one or more mechanisms to establish certification testing including:

Creating a group that would manage the examination process

Having schools or the certification group proctor exams

Having schools or the certification group grade the exams

Exam scores and tests will be kept in a database for which reporting will be available; the exact details shall be worked out at a later time, in particular, who will manage the database, who will have access to the database, what database shall be used, how access will be granted, and where the database will be stored, among others issues.

First Quarter 2010 Goals

Linden Participation

Linden Lab is supporting the development of certification for the use of key Second Life tools. We’ll begin with in-world building tools and LSL. We believe this will benefit Residents, Developers, and anyone who wishes to use Second Life by clearly identifying both key skills and the holders of those skills. This will also enable the creation of training to build the skills required for certification.

Certification Mailing List

SL Certification Group

SL Certification Devs - request membership from Orange Planer in world. Membership is open to anyone who requests it. Meetings are announced here and in-world.

Meeting Announcements

March 20, 2010 at 9 AM SLT/PST. If you do not have the landmark, please ask Orange Planer in-world.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the value of Certification?

The primary value of certification is to those hiring people to create content for them in SL. Specifically, it answers the question "where can I find a group of contractors that I can interview for work I need done?" Certification is a strong indication that someone has at least a minimum set of skills. Certification is only one of many ways to demonstrate competency.

Certification also provides a set of skills against which anyone in Second Life, whether they build for fun or for hire, can measure their accomplishments.

By more clearly defining skills related to Second Life tools, certification may improve the quality of construction in Second Life, and may encourage a broader range of instruction about the Second Life tools.

Portfolios already show if someone is competent; why do we need certification?

Not everyone has an extensive portfolio, despite obvious skill and talent. Portfolios have a valuable role in demonstrating accomplishment, both in RL and SL. In Second Life, many projects are done collaboratively. Builds can incorporate content that is bought and created, and many people can be involved. It can be hard to look at a project and understand what a particular person has contributed. Certification provides one method of demonstrating your own skill set. It should be only one of many potential ways to evaluate a candidate.

Is Linden Lab mandating certification?

You can chose to be certified if you want, or not. Linden Lab has no intent to monitor or mandate that Second Life content be created only by Residents with certification, or to mandate certification in any way. Nor will Certification (or non-certification) be tied by Linden Lab in any way to land ownership, group membership, membership level, or any other attribute of a Second Life account. While Linden Lab may provide a way for those listed in the Developer Directory to identify certification, it will not require it for the Developer Directory, Classifieds, Events, or any other Linden Lab-operated listing service.

Is Linden Lab mandating content of certification?

Linden Lab has engaged the Residents in defining the skills involved in competency, and in developing the appropriate demonstration of those skills. Linden Lab is not defining the skills nor the demonstration of them.

Will it cost money? Does Linden Lab intend to profit by Certification?

Linden Lab was looking to have a third party organization manage certification; we don't want the administrative hassle of doing it, nor the potential for anyone to claim that we would have influence on who gets certified. We intend to make certification as widely available as possible. We will work with Residents, Instructors and Developers to find the best way to enable certification.

Who will be providing the Certification service?

The SL Certification Developers group will be providing the certification service. SL Certification Developers welcomes input from anyone, although it reserves judgment on whether the input is valuable. Linden Lab has no intent of operating the certification service.

At this time, the only answer we can give is "Not Linden Lab." We will work with the Residents who participate in developing certification to find the best provider - whether a Resident, an external third party, or some other provider. Ironically, our original reason for only considering an external provider was to prevent any concern that one group of Residents might use Certification against other Residents. Linden Lab has no intent of operating the Certification service - we don't have the expertise or resources, nor do we want the inevitable accusations of bias.

Will certification make it harder to become competent in using Second Life tools?

Certification is a way to more clearly communicate skills. Without certification, everyone has their own idea of what competency is. Some classes will teach one set of skills, others another, and outcomes aren't comparable. That's why we're involving SL instructors in this project.

Learning to use SL Tools will still take the same amount of effort. Certification will help guide builders and scripters in what they ought to learn in order to achieve particular measurable standards.

How will information on who is certified by made available?

Residents who are certified will be listed on a public website, along with what certifications they hold.

Can we do certification in Second Life?

At least one Resident has started building a set of in-world tasks that could become part of a certification system. This seems preferable to having external tests/tasks.

Certification Categories

Categories for certification will be varied, and will grow or shrink over time.
The basic principal behind the certification process is to provide as wide an array of subjects as possible, and involve residents with skills in these areas.

Currently the following categories are being developed at Skills Lists above.

The certification skillsets were completed in 3rd Quarter 2010 but will be reviewed as technology changes.